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but it is. A youngster comes into your circle, and catches your eye. You’ve made it clear you don’t believe in celibacy, you won’t go more than a few weeks without a man, but they must be cute. There’s quite a lot of rivalry among certain types to come and work for you. To make it as far as here,’ he indicated the rumpled bed behind him, ‘is quite a coup. But in the end you’re their employer. If you were to make a pass and got turned down, or worse, laughed at, they could get the boot.’
    ‘No. I wouldn’t do that.’
    ‘Please. Get wise. There’s the anxiety that if they refused you, then wanted to leave, you wouldn’t write a reference. Or you could make it tough to move elsewhere. Again, loving you as I do, I’m certain the idea of such vindictiveness wouldn’t occur to you. But outside it looks too bloody likely.’
    ‘That’s bullshit.’ Diane leaned against the bedside table, frowning. ‘Tell me, did you feel exploited? Do you now?’
    ‘A little,’ Mark admitted. ‘And, to be honest, I calculated that if you were pleased with all myefforts, you’d help me get on. That’s why I didn’t let myself think twice about deceiving Susie, so perhaps I’m as much to blame as you. You did help, loads, and I’m terribly grateful. But you’ll have to find somebody else. I’m out of here.’
    ‘And if I’ve got any sense my next lover’ll be a fat-arsed fifty-five-year-old with a heart condition and a pension? Oh, come on.’
    The young man bent down and retrieved his shoes from under the bed. He did not reply.
    Diane softened. ‘I don’t see,’ she said slowly, ‘how my extending the hand of friendship to remarkable blokes like you could in any way be called exploitation. You’re accusing me of manipulating you, of having put you in an impossible bind. That is such an offensive suggestion.’
    ‘Is it? Tell me, Diane, when President Clinton got caught with a twenty-one-year-old intern, Monica Lewinsky, who did you blame?’
    ‘Him, of course. I’m on record on that. He was the guilty party. He seduced her. Silly cow that she was, she was in no position to run away.’
    ‘Exactly. I rest my case.’
     
    After Mark had left, Diane stood irresolute, bath towel in hand. She pulled the bed-sheets untidily into place, opened the curtains and unlatched a window. The light air that blew in dispelled the lingering odours of lovemaking and brought with it the piny smell of leaves that had spent the day in the sun. Down in St James’s Park a military band was playing. Starlings rose in squawking flurries as the shadows lengthened. She had a bare half-hour to get ready.
    After a shower, as she dressed swiftly, dabbing on perfume and makeup, Diane’s mind fluttered and protested over Mark’s comments and would not settle, much like the fractious birds in the eaves. Did he truly mean it, that the affair was finished? Next time she touched his shoulder, or rang his private line and proposed going over a briefing paper together, would he refuse, however politely? Was he about to become part of the past, along with every other handsome, virile youth whose performance in bed had thrilled her? And did that mean she would have to cast her roving eye about, and find somebody new?
    But, as he had pointed out, dalliance was far more dangerous now than it had been. If Mark was correct that her tastes were widely discussed, he had done well to keep his name out of the press. Perhaps they’d simply been lucky. But luck could vanish in an instant. Mark was right: chasing men, and especially junior staffers, had become a risky enterprise.
    It meant, paradoxically, that the case for suing the Globe was strengthened. The article was such a mishmash of snide invention, so devoid of fact, that an apology would serve as an example to other papers. She was vulnerable and had to make herself less so. A solidly backed threat to Betts and his ilk might keep the trash-peddlers at bay for some years. To let them get